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SA Rugby laughs off Div’s claims

Cape Town - SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux has laughed off claims from former Springbok coach Peter de Villiers that some of the rugby governing body’s members paid Boland to not consider him for their head coaching position last year.

De Villiers, who coached the Springboks between 2008 and 2011, was last year linked to the Boland Cavaliers job after Brent Janse van Rensburg quit as head coach in October.

But in an interview with Jo’burg PM on Monday, De Villiers alleged that there were sinister means behind his removal from contention for the job.

“I don’t know what I did wrong. I think I am too strong... my way of thinking, my way of doing things... and maybe there’s something wrong with my ears because I don’t listen to things I know won’t work. And the rugby people don’t like it..." De Villiers said in the interview.

“They will never allow me to go to any rugby union in South Africa. What I heard very early last year is that people from SARU paid Boland actually, or offered them money not to even consider me... I heard it from a very good source.”

In response, SA Rugby refuted De Villiers’s claims.

Roux told SA Rugbymag that the claims are “factually incorrect and laughable”.

It wasn’t the first time De Villiers had been linked to the Boland head coaching role. In May 2015 it was also reported that he could become Boland coach, before Dewey Swartbooi got the nod for that year’s Currie Cup.

When Swartbooi quit Boland for a job at the Bulls late in 2015, Janse van Rensburg was roped in after resigning at the financially stricken EP Kings.

Janse van Rensburg, who has since been named head coach of the Pumas, quit the Boland job under mysterious circumstances.

It came a week after Boland’s director of rugby, Alan Zondagh, also resigned, citing political interference from the union’s board as a reason for his departure.

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